Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Social Media and Service

Welcome back to my blog!

As you may know, I’m into social media – I have a twitter account, a facebook account and my wife and I met on a social media site in 2003. I love social media! There can be so much good done in the world, and though social media isn’t the only way to accomplish good things, it’s certainly an important component about getting good and positive messages out.

But, like any invention, from the discovery of fire to everything created after that, it can be used to do good or to accomplish evil purposes. Fire can be used to either warm your family or to burn down the neighbor’s home.

I’m sure we’ve all read the news accounts where people with apparently nothing better to do, use their myspace, facebook and other social media pages to trash-talk others. Teenagers are especially prone to this, possibly because this is there technology. Us older folks aren’t immune, however, and we tend to do the same thing from time to time.

So, here’s today’s challenge:

If you have an account on a social media site, find one of your connected friends and send them a positive message. Tell them how much you appreciate them. Remind them of something they’ve recently done that inspired you or helped you or taught you.

If you see something negative posted about someone else, no matter how well-deserved you think that criticism is, simply ignore it. Refuse to comment on it or pass it on.

I know you can do this.

You come to my blog to learn ways to be a better person, to learn how to serve others in small and simple ways. For that, I greatly appreciate you, and I encourage you to continue using social media for good.

Thanks for reading today! Feel free to pass this on, to forward it, to retweet it and to repost it wherever you like.